He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look
into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have
allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry
that some lawmakers have proposed, the sources said

Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request.

"The vice president expressed the concern that a review of what
happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from
the effort in the war on terrorism," Daschle told reporters.

But, Daschle said, he has not agreed to limit the investigation.

"I acknowledged that concern, and it is for that reason that the
Intelligence Committee is going to begin this effort, trying to limit
the scope and the overall review of what happened," said Daschle,
D-South Dakota.

"But clearly, I think the American people are entitled to know what happened and why," he said.

Cheney met last week in the Capitol with the chairmen of the House
and Senate intelligence committees and, according to a spokesman for
Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham, D-Florida, "agreed to
cooperate with their effort."

The heads of both intelligence committees have been meeting to map
out a way to hold a bipartisan House-Senate investigation and hearings.

They were discussing how the inquiry would proceed, including what
would be made public, what would remain classified, and how broad the
probe would be.

Graham's spokesman said the committees will review intelligence matters only.

"How ill prepared were we and why? We are looking towards the
possibility of addressing systemic problems through legislation," said
spokesman Paul Anderson.

Some Democrats, such as Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and
Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, have been calling for a broad inquiry
looking at various federal government agencies beyond the intelligence
community.

"We do not meet our responsibilities to the American people if we do
not take an honest look at the federal government and all of its
agencies and let the country know what went wrong," Torricelli said.

"The best assurance that there's not another terrorist attack on the
United States is not simply to hire more federal agents or spend more
money. It's to take an honest look at what went wrong. Who or what
failed? There's an explanation owed to the American people," he said.

Although the president and vice president told Daschle they were
worried a wide-reaching inquiry could distract from the government's
war on terrorism, privately Democrats questioned why the White House
feared a broader investigation to determine possible culpability.

"We will take a look at the allocation of resources. Ten thousand
federal agents -- where were they? How many assets were used, and what
signals were missed?" a Democratic senator told CNN.

-- CNN Capitol Hill Producer Dana Bash and CNN Correspondents Jon Karl and John King contributed to this report.